… then what should the recipient of 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) Telecom Malaysia bill think? 
Tags: telecom, phone bill, overbilling, consumer rights
If You Thought Your Phone Bill Was High …
Posted on April 10, 2006 ·
What’s the Big Fuss About the Exit Exams?
Posted on April 10, 2006 ·
(Updated)
From the Merc: “In what could become the first school-based rebellion against the state’s high-stakes high school exit exam law, one of the Bay Area’s largest school districts is considering awarding diplomas to seniors who have failed the exam but are otherwise qualified to graduate”
- What exactly does “otherwise qualified” mean?
“There’s a whole group of kids who are working really hard and, for whatever reason, can’t pass this exam,”
- Working hard is nice but not enough …
“Most of all, students realize that having a diploma is key to better job prospects. If you want a decent job, the diploma opens doors.”
- So it’s about entitlement? We deserve a diploma so we get better jobs.. even if we can’t pass a very basic exam?
I just don’t get it. There is a competitive world out there, at the end of High School it’s about high time (pun intended) to learn that achievement is what gets rewarded, not sitting through all these years.
Related posts:
- School Board Member Wants To Break Law
- What’s the aim of school?
- Is it just me, or is something wrong here?
Update (4/12): Why Johnny cannot get a tech job – a good example by Vinnie on what happens when we “pump out” high school graduates without proper educational achievements.
Update (8/11): Appeals court refuses diplomas for 20,000 who failed exit exam (SFGate, hat tip: Jeff Nolan). Justice Ruvolo: “A high school diploma is not an education, any more than a birth certificate is a baby.’’
Tags: education, exit exam, high school exit exam, california, california exit exam, cahsee
I’m Topping Yahoo News (?)
Posted on April 9, 2006 ·
No way .. that can’t be – that’s what I thought when my visitor log showed Yahoo News as referrer.
Clicking the link explains it all: Yahoo News Search also displays relevant blog posts in the sidebar. I wrote a piece about the elections in Hungary – not so much about the elections or the political situation but the fact that the incumbent Premier blogs daily.. for all I know he could be the first Head of Government doing so.
Apparently the Hungarian elections are not the most talked about topic in the blogosphere, so my obscure little piece got listed right next to AP, AFP, UPI … so there’s my 5 minutes (1 hour?) of fame. 
Tags: blogging, elections, politics, Hungary, blog search, YAHOO, Yahoo News, News Search
The Blogging Prime Minister
Posted on April 8, 2006 ·
How many Heads of Government are known to be bloggers? Hungarian Premier Ferenc Gyurcsany may be the first one. The country is preparing for parliamentary elections this Sunday, and the incumbent’s move to start his blog several months ago turns out to be smart in many ways.
It’s all about getting close, personal: the occasional TV-interview at their private home, with kids running around always boosts politician’s ratings, but how often can they do it? Gyurcsany talks to tens (hundreds?) of thousands of users every day on his personal blog. His readers now know his family, they know about his son’s football accident, about his dog breaking expensive china ..etc – considering that polls show this election to be extremely tight, for the undecided voter it may just come down to this level of “personalization”.
Starting the blog was a perfect coup, putting his opponent in a rather inconvenient situation: if he starts his own blog, he’s a copycat, if he doesn’t (which is what he chose), he clearly sends at least tens of thousands of undecided voters to the incumbent’s way.
Tomorrow we’ll see how it worked. I certainly hope the blog will not die after the elections, independent of the results – in fact I hope this will set a precedent for other Heads of Government.
Update (4/13): The Premier’s party won the first rounds in the elections.
Update (9/20): German Chancellor Angela Merkel started videoblogging. Btw, the Blogma post incorrectly identifies Merkel Head of State. Germany has a (largely ceremonial) Head of State, the Chancellor runs the Government.
Re: Censoring Blog Comments
Posted on April 7, 2006 ·
Nick Carr received an offensive comment which another reader asked him to remove. His response:
“My policy is to let idiots speak freely. It makes them easier to spot.”
I like that policy. Vinnie further laments on the ethics of deleting / censoring comments, and invites reader feedback on what the right approach is:
- Avoid blogging about political or controversial topics in first place
- Moderate comments and delete the offending comment
- Email back to commenter to re-post using cleaner language
- Delete the offending comment when the second reader protested
- Let comment stay and react like Nick did
I generally favor #5, the only comments I delete are the obvious spam, of which I have my fair share. As a matter of fact the only truly hateful comment I’ve received was such a “masterpiece” that I elevated it to the rank of a post: Anonymous Hate Commenter.
That said, while 5 is my choice, I think 2,3,4 are equally acceptable. We’re not a public service, but individuals who decided to share our views via blogging, and it’s perfectly right to try and maintain a certain standard – again, what that standard should be is up to the author.
#1 is a bit different in my mind. I would not avoid blogging about political or controversial topics only to avoid conflict. But it may be advisable to maintain a certain professional or other focus. It’s an editorial choice. Personally I mix software, politics, humor, and whatever I feel is interesting, although I try to stay close to software. I actually believe this “mix” brings me closer to my readers, revealing some of my personality. I definitely enjoy reading these tidbits on other blogs. For many “pro” bloggers staying focused is the right way though, but again, this is a business / content decision, not conflict avoidance. Some of the focused pro bloggers decided to create sidekick blogs, specifically for these random musings, without clobbering their main blog.
Update (4/15): Robert Scoble decided to moderate comments from now on. The Blogosphere reacts: Kent Newsome, Eric Eggertson, Mini-Microsoft, Damien Mulley …etc.
Tags: blogs, blogging, comments, moderating, censorship, blogging ethics, business blogging, politics
New Trackback Spam Tactics?
Posted on April 7, 2006 ·
So new, I don’t even understand it. Here’s a trackback I received to one of my posts several months ago:
good related article
As you may have noticed, the URL points to www.yahoo.com. There is no other hidden url or any other code – so what’t the point? Who benefits from this?
Tags: spam, trackback spam, spamback, trackspam, blogs, blogging
Software 2006: Questioning the McKinsey Study
Posted on April 7, 2006 ·
(Updated)
McKinsey and Company in collaboration with the Sand Hill Group, organizer of the Software 2006 Conference released their Industry Study (pdf) that I have to take issue with. (yes, I know, who am I to disagree with McKinsey?)
“Business Model Discontinuity: Software as a Service (SaaS) and Open Source. Two major business models are vying for an growing share of software spend: Software as a Service and Open Source. …SaaS has already gained traction in number of application areas – such as payroll, human capital management, CRM, conferencing, procurement, logistics, information services, and e-commerce) – and should make gains across a much broader cross-section of applications over the next 3 years. Out of 34 application areas we have examined, only nine are unlikely to see some SaaS adoption over through 2008”
Apparently McKinsey tells us that Financial Applications are the back-office function most unlikely to see SaaS adoption for years to come. Hm … I know the trendy app now is CRM, but there were widely-used web-based packages long before CRM. Intuit, NetSuite (originally NetLedger), Intacct, 24SevenOffice, WinWeb ..just to name a few.
Perhaps these companies can jump in here, and tell us what they think of McKinsey’s prediction that SaaS will not take off for financial apps?
Update (4/7): Dennis Howlett has a really good point bringing up Document Management, the other “unlikely” area per McKinsey. As to confidentiality concerns: the numbers in the financial apps are the result of real business activity that may very well have been in other hosted systems, e.g. CRM, Procurement..etc. Document Management? Oh, well, our external interaction is often on hosted platforms (email), sales contracts are largely in hosted systems (CRM)… I could go on.
Interestingly enough businesses lost more confidential data stored “safely” inside the firewall due to disgruntled ex-employees than due to “exposure” to SaaS providers.
But the point I made about Accounting systems, that this isn’t subject to predictions, it’s already happening, or has happened largely: accounting was available On-Demand before CRM was “born”.
Update (5/31): New McKinsey paper bullish about SaaS model. (hat tip: Nick Carr. Free registration required to read).
Update (8/17): Dennis points us at Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Software as a Service.
“On-Demand Financial Management Applications and On-Demand Sales Force Automation are said to be at the peak.”
Interesting. McKinsey says it’s not coming for years, Gartner says it’s already at the peak. Go figure … 
Related posts:
Those Shameless Kids
Posted on April 6, 2006 ·
How dare a 5–year old child comfort her kindergarten classmate after she fell on the playground? Shameless children! Of course their Commander teacher had to discipline them. (read on at the Boston Herald)
Somebody please pinch me, wake me up… this can’t be happening, I must be having a bad dream!
Wow, apparently others are having the same bad dream:
Tags: education, kindergarten, discipline
Your Razr is Suddenly Oh-so Bulky…
Posted on April 6, 2006 ·
Samsung unveiled the t509 which will be the thinnest cell phone on the market in the U.S. The Samsung T509 will be released in May, specifically for T-Mobile. wireless service. (read more at Daily Tech)
Of course if you prefer a real smartphone, you’ll have to go for the Nokirola. 
Tags: Samsung, Motorola, RAZR, Slimphone, Cellular, Cellphone
Software 2006: Wikis Win
Posted on April 6, 2006 ·
(Updated)
Wikis and blogs -social software in general – were the “latent” subject at Software 2006, popping up at several sessions throughout the conference.
In his opening keynote Ray Lane talked about the inter-personal enterprise: collaboration, increased participation through friendlier, better user experience; the user as an individual, “consumer” has to like the software, then will use it, and usage spreads within the company: a pull process, rather than push – the traditional enterprise sales model. This is exactly the model wikis are “sold”, as we discussed earlier. Ray specifically mentioned how useful they found using a wiki at Kleiner Perkins.
Then during the last panel, Toby Redshaw, CIO of Motorola talked about how he installed wikis and blogs: turned it on, decidedly not telling anyone “above” or laterally until it was too late for anyone worried about “control” to interfere. People discovered the new tools, started to use them, and before he knew there were 1900 blogs and 2000 wikis used in Motorola. Grassroots action at it’s best, just like Ray explained. Joe (JotSpot) and Ross (SocialText) could not have asked for a better plug of wikis, just minutes prior to their software showcase.
On the way from this session to the showcase room Ross was showing me his latest baby, Miki, the mobile wiki. One of the conference attendees (Director at a major organization) walked alongside us, overheard the conversation, and jumped in: “where can I get it?” Wow, I think Ross just closed a 30–second sale 
There is something funny about these product names, though. Ross just found out that Miki in Irish slang means male genitalia… hm… close .. here’s the Urban Dictionary definition. Never mind, it didn’t hurt Jobby, won’t hurt Miki either. Incidentally, Miki in Hungarian is nickname form for Nicholas, and in Japanese a female name meaning “flower stalk.” Not bad.
The Miki launch was the last announcement of the day, then we headed off for some “Open Source” cocktails and appetizers.
Related posts – Miki seems to enjoy a warm welcome:
- First Glance: Socialtext Miki
- Socialtext’s Mobile Wiki: Miki
- Software 2006 Wrap-up
- Socialtext Introduces “Miki”
- Hey Miki! | Socialtext Enterprise Wiki Miki for Mobile & Web 2.0 Plays
- Hey Miki, You’re So Fine …
- Here a Wiki, there a Wiki, everywhere a Wiki with Miki
- Fortune 500 business blogging update
Update (4/8): It was fun to see JotSpot and SocialText together – would have been even more fun to see the third (and by the number of enterprise customers definitely not last) product: Confluence by Atlassian.
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